Why the NT was written in Aramaic and Greek

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Don't kid yourself.

I'm not, although I may be kidding myself by thinking we'll ever come to an agreement here.

We need to redefine Judaism before we can make claims they were resistant to Gentile traditions.

We need to "redefine Judaism" in order to note that archaeological findings like mikvot, ossuaries, Jewish vessels made of limestone out of concern for Jewish purity, and other indicators (not to mention the lack of pagan statues, idols, alters, or similar indications of non-Jewish presence) indicate traditional Jewish practices and a lack of both Gentiles and Gentile culture?

Hellenistic Judaism had open arms to Hellenism and Gentile traditions.

You base this on...? The fact that Herod the Great and Antipas and Archelaus deliberately avoided casting coins which had anthropomorphic images so as to not offend the Jewish population? The avoidance of figural representations (from statues to frescos) throughout 1st century Palestine? Jospehus' description of the small numbers of gentiles in a city like Tiberius in the 60s?

While Galilean peasants would have fit your description above, that is not the Galilee of Jesus day.

According to which archaeological surveys and sources?

Galilee in Jesus day was multi cultural all within Judaism

.

Amazing that you are able to discern this despite the utter lack of evidence for it and so much to the contrary. What in particular did you find lacking in dissertations, monographs, and volumes since the archaeological evidence has made increasingly clear that the "Gentile Galilee" was a fiction now unsupportable?

The socioeconomic difference between Hellenistic Judaism and a more traditional Judaism

is meaningless. Jewish worldviews cannot have socioeconomic statuses. I'm sure you meant something by this but could you rephrase it because I'm missing what you intended by it?

The Jews of Nazareth, were not the Hellenistic Jews of Sepphoris.

We aren't even sure whether Sepphoris had a theater in Jesus' day, but we do find a lack of onomastic, epigraphic, and artistic evidence of Hellenization or Romanization in 1st century Sepphoris.

 

[oldbadger]

Jesus was known to preach in Aramaic and the NT was written in Greek and Aramaic.

Hello......

My question.

If Jesus was a Jew,then why he didn't preach in Hebrew.............

......because Galilean working people's first language was Galilean Aramaic? He called Simon 'Cephas', not 'Peter'..... etc....?

and why his words wasn't recorded in Hebrew in that time.

..........because very few Galilean working people could write...? They used 'Oral reporting' to pass on and remember things done and said. This continued for maybe a couple of decades after his death before people thought to start writing it all down, but I have read that Cephas did keep notes, and that Mark took these to Alexandria after Cephas's death.

Question:- Can you tell us...... what is the particular reason for your interest about this?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

They used 'Oral reporting' to pass on and remember things done and said. This continued for maybe a couple of decades after his death before people thought to start writing it all down, but I have read that Cephas did keep notes, and that Mark took these to Alexandria after Cephas's death.

Almost but not quite on the mark (in a way). Eusebius quotes several lines from an early 2nd century work of Papias. Papias tells us several things in these few lines. First, like most he tells us he doesn't trust written sources (which was standard, but interesting in this case because likely all four gospels and certainly the first 3 have already been written). Second, he tells us what sources he prefers: those who can tell him what the followers of Jesus' disciples said about Jesus' words/commandments, as well as "what Aristion and John the Elder, the disciples of the Lord, were saying". In other words, here we are nearly a century after Jesus with practically the entire NT already written, and not only is the oral tradition still going on, but we know of at least one person who is still using particular "authoritative" oral sources that include reports from Jesus' disciples themselves.

Finally, he tells us that Mark, Peter's interpreter, took wrote down what Peter had said (it's unclear whether the Greek means that Mark wrote down "as many things/as much as" Mark himself recalled of what Peter said or whether he wrote down "as many things" Peter recalled).

Peter himself, however, is not said to have taken notes.

 

[FearGod]

Question:- Can you tell us...... what is the particular reason for your interest about this?

Imagine if a prophet nowadays born in Iran and preaching in English or Indian language.

for example in Palestine nowadays there are 3 languages used among people and which is Hebrew,Arabic and English.

So imagine a Jewish prophet will preach in Arabic and English instead of his own native language.

And then after long period of time his words is kept in Arabic and English and not in the language of his own people.

The Aramaic language is the language spoken by the Assyrian people.

Assyrian people - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I am just surprised and not able to swallow the easy answers which doesn't make sense to me.

It seems that i am the only surprised here.

 

[Caladan]

So this is just your frustration that Jesus was an Aramaic speaking Jewish man and not an Arabic speaking Muslim man?
Tell me do you feel the same about the majority of Muslims who cannot read the Qur'an in Classical Arabic?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

So imagine a Jewish prophet will preach in Arabic and English instead of his own native language.

You mean, imagine you understand so little of comparative linguistics, language, historical linguistics, philology, linguistic typology, and I can't imagine what else that the distinctions between a language and a language family are entirely lost on you?

Have you ever encountered Old English? Here's a bit from the Battle of Madon:
þa þæt Offan mæg ærest onfunde,
þæt se eorl nolde yrhðo geþolian,
he let him þa of handon leofne fleogan
hafoc wið þæs holtes, and to þære hilde stop;
be þam man mihte oncnawan þæt se cniht nolde

Can you read that? It's in English, after all. It's not even a different language in the same family (as Aramaic is with respect to Hebrew), it's the same language from a different period!

The Aramaic language is the language spoken by the Assyrian people[/QUOTE
And Hebrew is a Canaanite. So what?

I am just surprised and not able to swallow the easy answers which doesn't make sense to me.

You are surprised that others don't equate Judaism with a language?

 

[Caladan]

And Hebrew is a Canaanite. So what

Arabic from the early medieval era onward is to hundreds of millions of people (and several major cultures) what Aramaic was during the Iron age to Second Temple Period to millions of other people. A language of a conquest. Just as Aramaic became the dominant language after the Babylonian and Assyrian conquests, so did Arabic centuries later as Egyptians, Jews, Greeks and many more lost their native tongues (along with their culture, with some notable exception in the Jews).

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Arabic from the early medieval era onward is to hundreds of millions of people (and several major cultures) what Aramaic was during the Iron age to Second Temple Period to millions of other people. A language of a conquest.

You refer to Imperial/Official Aramaic that became the lingua franca of the Babylonian empire, correct? What I find interesting (and it could be just my elementary ability to read Hebrew and Aramaic and a pathetic ability even to read Aramaic when written in a different alphabet, as in Syriac) is that while the spread of Greek after Alexander's conquest resulted in a general simplification of classical Greek as well as a plurality of dialectical variants, but it seems (from what I know of the history of Aramaic and Semitic languages) that this variance is more akin to the middle Aramaic in which we find Hatran, Palmyrene and other dialectical attestations. It is my understanding that the uniformity of "Imperial Aramaic" reflects a lack of attestation of dialects in extant texts, rather than the apparent uniformity we find. Is this the case?

some notable exception in the Jews

That's putting it mildly I'd say. There is no people (ethnoi? genos?) with culture, tradition, etc., so distinct from any region (or, perhaps distinct form any region dwelt in, as Israel was always central), any language, or anything else that defined what a nation/people/culture was. I cannot recall how much my grandfather consciously considered being a Jew an important aspect of his worldview, but I have known more than a few atheists who are rather passionate about being Jewish. Not a race, not a nation, not a religion, not a language, yet in some sense all of these. Incredible.

 

[godnotgod]

The Aramaic language is the language spoken by the Assyrian people.

As I understand it further, these people brought Aramaic into the Galilean area, and their Aramaic became the Galilean Aramaic dialect which Yeshu spoke. Something akin to that. Perhaps you can flesh it out a bit more.

Victor Alexander, a native Aramaic speaker from Iran and who has published a translation of the Aramaic Bible into English, gives us this same scenario.

 

[Pastek]

Jesus was known to preach in Aramaic and the NT was written in Greek and Aramaic.

My question.

If Jesus was a Jew,then why he didn't preach in Hebrew and why his words wasn't recorded in Hebrew in that time.

I made a quick research and i found that concerning Matthiew's gospel :

As a government official in Capernaum, in "Galilee of the Gentiles", a tax-collector would probably have been literate in both Greek and Aramaic. Greek was the language used in the market-place.

Some early church fathers recorded that Matthew originally wrote in "Hebrew", but still regarded the Greek text as canonical.

Matthew the Apostle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The tradition that this was the disciple Matthew begins with the early Christian bishop Papias of Hierapolis (b. 63), who wrote: "Matthew wrote down the sayings of Jesus (logia) in Hebrew dialect (en Hebraïdi dialektōi—may refer to Hebrew or Aramaic), and everyone translated (hērmēneusen—or "interpreted") them to the best of their ability. On the surface this implies that Matthew's Gospel was written in Hebrew or Aramaic and translated into Greek, but the passage is ambiguous and Matthew's Greek "reveals none of the telltale marks of a translation."

Scholars have put forward several theories to explain Papias: perhaps Matthew wrote two gospels, one, now lost, in Hebrew, the other our Greek version; or perhaps the logia was a collection of sayings rather than the gospel; or by dialektōi Papias may have meant that Matthew wrote in the Jewish style rather than in the Hebrew language.

Gospel of Matthew - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[gnostic]

Victor Alexander, a native Aramaic speaker from Iran and who has published a translation of the Aramaic Bible into English, gives us this same scenario.

:no: ...not the Victor Alexander and his bogus Aramaic bible again.

 

[sojourner]

Imagine if a prophet nowadays born in Iran and preaching in English or Indian language.

for example in Palestine nowadays there are 3 languages used among people and which is Hebrew,Arabic and English.

So imagine a Jewish prophet will preach in Arabic and English instead of his own native language.

And then after long period of time his words is kept in Arabic and English and not in the language of his own people.

The Aramaic language is the language spoken by the Assyrian people.

Assyrian people - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I am just surprised and not able to swallow the easy answers which doesn't make sense to me.

It seems that i am the only surprised here.

the gospel stories and quotes of Jesus were probably originally orally told and retold in Aramaic (and Greek). When they were finally written down, they were written down in Greek, because, by that time, Xy was far more Gentile than Judaic. What's so curious about that? Thomas was written in Coptic; that's the language of the area in which the text was rediscovered.

 

[godnotgod]

:no: ...not the Victor Alexander and his bogus Aramaic bible again.

No, the Victor Alexander and his authentic Aramaic Bible.

 

[FunctionalAtheist]

Does anyone have any real knowledge of what language the most influential figure in the western world spoke?

Yes! Eric speaks English.

 

[godnotgod]

the gospel stories and quotes of Jesus were probably originally orally told and retold in Aramaic (and Greek). When they were finally written down, they were written down in Greek, because, by that time, Xy was far more Gentile than Judaic. What's so curious about that? Thomas was written in Coptic; that's the language of the area in which the text was rediscovered.

Isn't that because Greek was forced onto the populace, and Aramaic suppressed, and texts possibly destroyed?

 

[outhouse]

I'm not, although I may be kidding myself by thinking we'll ever come to an agreement here.



We need to "redefine Judaism" in order to note that archaeological findings like mikvot, ossuaries, Jewish vessels made of limestone out of concern for Jewish purity, and other indicators (not to mention the lack of pagan statues, idols, alters, or similar indications of non-Jewish presence) indicate traditional Jewish practices and a lack of both Gentiles and Gentile culture?


You base this on...? The fact that Herod the Great and Antipas and Archelaus deliberately avoided casting coins which had anthropomorphic images so as to not offend the Jewish population? The avoidance of figural representations (from statues to frescos) throughout 1st century Palestine? Jospehus' description of the small numbers of gentiles in a city like Tiberius in the 60s?



According to which archaeological surveys and sources?

.

Amazing that you are able to discern this despite the utter lack of evidence for it and so much to the contrary. What in particular did you find lacking in dissertations, monographs, and volumes since the archaeological evidence has made increasingly clear that the "Gentile Galilee" was a fiction now unsupportable?




is meaningless. Jewish worldviews cannot have socioeconomic statuses. I'm sure you meant something by this but could you rephrase it because I'm missing what you intended by it?


We aren't even sure whether Sepphoris had a theater in Jesus' day, but we do find a lack of onomastic, epigraphic, and artistic evidence of Hellenization or Romanization in 1st century Sepphoris.

No mikvah has been found in all of Sepphoris, correct?

Its population was also loyal to Rome. No real oppressed peasant Jew would have been loyal to Rome. Loyal to Roma also means aceptance to Gentiles.

There were many differences in Galilean society, you cannot get around this in any way shape or form.

 

[Caladan]

Isn't that because Greek was forced onto the populace, and Aramaic suppressed, and texts possibly destroyed?

The sacred language of the Jewish people is Hebrew. Aramaic replaced the common use of Hebrew because it has become the lingua franca of the region after the Babylonian and Assyrian conquests in which Imperial Aramaic was prominent. And until this day us Jews use the Imperial Aramaic script which the rest of you believe to be Hebrew alphabet. Our original script looks as the Canaanite script of the Phoenicians. So in this regard, both Greek and Aramaic were languages which became widely used because of Imperial conquests by the ancient Empires of the Near East and the Mediterranean.
There seems to be a trend by a couple of members here to believe that Aramaic is a sacred language in the Jewish mind. So let me make it a little bit more accurate, Aramaic is a sister language of Hebrew, some would even say close enough to be a sister dialect, so it certainly has an important traditional importance. However it is Hebrew, a dominant language in the Bible which is considered the sacred language of both liturgy and scripture, and has been the native tongue of the people in our primal defining moments.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

No mikvah has been found in all of Sepphoris, correct?

Incorrect. They have. See e.g., Chancey, M. A. R. K. (2001). The cultural milieu of ancient Sepphoris. New Testament Studies, 47(2), 127-145.

Its population was also loyal to Rome.

Your evidence for this is...?

No real oppressed peasant Jew would have been loyal to Rome. Loyal to Roma also means aceptance to Gentiles.

And as the Romans increased their military presence until war broke out about the time Mark was written, what loyalty do you refer to?

There were many differences in Galilean society

And what sources do you use for you understanding of them?

 

[Clarity]

All NT books were originally written in Greek. Historical fact. Jesus was a Hellenized Jew, because he quoted only the Septuagint not the Hebrew scriptures. We have older fragments of the Septuagint than we have of any Aramaic or Hebrew versions of the OT. Makes you wonder what language the OT was originally written in.

The problem with your post is that none of the originals are available.
You therefore don't know what language they were written in, do you?

 

[Clarity]

Does anyone have any real knowledge of what language the most influential figure in the western world spoke?

From the Steinsalz Talmud, referring to the Roman Period:

Residents of Galilee spoke the Galilean dialect of Aramaic
Residents of Judea spoke Hebrew
Residents of Jerusalem spoke "pure" Hebrew

(Neighboring areas spoke Samaritan Aramaic, Iduean Aramaic and Syrian Aramaic. Greek was spoken by many as a second language due to several centuries of Hellenization, mostly along the coast and in business transactions.)